"We've the electronic ink material which is the part that's flashing black and white. We've got plastic electronics which is controlling the e-ink and telling it what image to put on and we've put them together to work on this flexible plastic sheet."

"This is really ground-breaking stuff because this is the first time e-ink has been proven to work with plastic electronics on a flexible display and this is an important first step in our vision of what an electronic paper product could look like in the future."

In-store displays

The first commercial application for this technology has been through the development of electronic signs such as in-store displays connected via a wireless link.

We have to treat each development cautiously. I don't think we want to jump in with both feet

Jeremy Ettinghausen, Penguin e-book editor

The message on any or all of the signs can be changed remotely simply at the push of a button.

"That's just the beginning," says chief scientist at Xerox, John Seely Brown.

"You can actually think about there being a book now because you can actually put some electronics on the back of this thing and it becomes a display. And you can build an entire book out of this material."

Caution and excitement

But the publishing world is undecided about e-paper. Even publishers who are moving into the hi-tech arena with e-books reserve judgement on e-paper.

"We have to treat each development cautiously. I don't think we want to jump in with both feet," says Penguin e-book editor, Jeremy Ettinghausen.

"E-ink is obviously something very exciting. One of the principal objections people voice about e-books is that they don't like reading off a screen so I can imagine a device that looks and acts exactly like paper would be something that would be very attractive.

"But I think it's something that we'll wait to see how the market evolves and how the technology evolves."

The success or otherwise of this electronic equivalent to paper will depend in part on finding what is called the killer application.

What will e-paper be used for? Taking the place of newspapers, magazines and books, or replacing shop signs? Until that question is answered, we will not be discarding the real thing quite yet.

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